This my obligatory blog recipe, and you've probably seen it if you've ever read a blog of mine. It's easy and delicious, and everyone loves them.

Cream Cheese Bars

2 8 oz. packages cream cheese
2 packages of crescent rolls
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 stick butter/margarine
1/4 cup sugar mixed with a tbsp. cinnamon

If you're like me, you never have the foresight to take the cream cheese out early enough for it to soften. So stick those bad boys in the microwave for 30 seconds, flip em around, then another 30 seconds.

Cream the cheese, sugar, and vanilla.

Roll out one package of crescent rolls into a 13x9 pan sprayed with Pam. You might have to work it a bit to make it cover the bottom, but don't overwork it. Spread (or pour, if you went the microwave route) the cream cheese mixture over that, then roll out the other pack of crescent rolls on top.

Melt the stick of butter and pour it all over the top. It looks like too much butter, but it's soooo good. Then sprinkle the cinnamon/sugar on top, and bake at 350 degrees about 30 minutes.

And there you have it. My perennial dessert recipe.

No, it's not what you think!

I took out some chicken legs to thaw this morning, and later this afternoon, Tom asked me what I was planning to do with them. I had some teriyaki sauce in the pantry, and I was just going to grill them and baste the heck outta them with the teriyaki. Well, Tom thought I should baste them with Frank's Hot Sauce. This is what we would normally use for hot wings.






So I did! I seared them for a few minutes on each side, moved them off the direct heat of the flame, and quadruple basted those bad boys until they were done.

They were gooooood. Lips-on-fire goooooood.

I had class Friday morning but got my 40 hours research in earlier in the week, so I was OFF Friday and Saturday!

Which was good because we reformatted my laptop Wednesday, Tom fixed a lot of what we messed up Thursday, and Friday I had time to get things back to normal. I think if I ever get a new laptop, I will reformat it as soon as I get it. I have NOTHING on my desktop now, no junk software like "Quickbooks Trial" or "Sign up for AOL". Nothing! My PC is zippy again, and I hope I don't get anymore blue screens of death. If I don't, I'll officially withdraw myself from the laptop market.

Yesterday we went to Edgewood City Lake to fish with my dad for father's day. I don't have pictures because I took leftover disposable cameras from my reception (EDIT: now I do have pictures!). I need to get those developed. It was such a nutty day. First, we woke up at 5am and headed to Edgewood at 5:30. We got lost trying to find the lake, called my sister for directions, still couldn't find it, called my dad and got GOOD directions, and finally arrived. He had a nice looking setup with his EZ-up awning, several chairs and mini tables, and even a Lugable-Loo in an Outback tent. We talked and fished from the bank for a while. Danyelle, Reade, Chase and Miranda showed up, then the guys went out in the kayaks while the girls sat around and talked. It got really windy and chilly, and we rode out a storm. But after that storm, the weather was gorgeous. I caught two catfish (one pretty good sized!), and Chase caught 4-5 little ones.

After we loaded up and got ready to go out to eat with the Ellison-branch of the family, I mentioned something to Tom about, "I wish I could find my sunglasses." I couldn't find them all day, and I figured they must've gotten lost in the truck or something. Nope, they got lost ON the truck. Tom said, "You don't have your glasses??" He had last seen them on the bumper of the truck. So we headed back to the lake to look for them. On the way there, we were in a hurry, and Tom was going too fast down one of Edgewood's worst, pot-hole ridden roads, and part of the PVC on our kayak trailer broke. Tom was already irritated when that happened, but now he was pissed. We didn't find my sunglasses at the lake (they're prescription, that's what the fuss was), then as Tom was trying to back out of the lake driveway, he hit something hard. There was a tree stump hidden in the grassy ditch he was using to turn around. It ripped out the wiring for the tail-lights on the trailer.

I opted to keep my mouth shut for the next 20 minutes. LOL

Dinner at Saltgrass with the Ellisons was great! I had a chicken fried steak because I wasn't craving normal steak. It was massive and very tender. We finally headed home about 8:45, and I was so tired that I slept today til 9:30. I outslept Tom! When I woke up I smelled coffee. Nothing is better than coffee you don't have to make yourself!

Today I should be doing research, but I think I'm going to opt for laundry. We just put some dressers from Tom's grandma's house in our bedroom (if you've ever seen our bedroom, you know we really needed furniture!) and now we need to redistribute our clothes. I'm also in the market for a new comforter.....

I am in the market. I am between a MacBook and an Asus Eee 900. But to understand where I'm going, you must first understand where I've been.

I have had a Dell Inspiron 700m for about 3 years. It is a great laptop! It's less than 5 lbs (without the mammoth battery I added to it for extra life) and the screen is 12.1". I have been very happy with it overall. This semester, I started taking it to campus daily, and it has taken a beating just hanging out in my backpack. Lately, I have serious driver problems and get a lot of blue-screens-of-death.

So, I could get a MacBook and venture into the Apple unknown. MacBook's are very trendy among the campus crowd and supposedly durable with few of the kinks associated with Windows. The one I'm looking at is 160 GB hard drive and 13" screen. So a little bigger than mine, but lighter, and infinitely cooler.

But I'm considering the Asus Eee 900. At half the price, weight, and size (9" screen), it'd be no bigger than a small textbook. If you have a second, watch this video:

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/asus-eee-pc-900/4505-3121_7-33016827.html

I think I could handle toting that around, and at half the investment, if something happened while I'm toting it around, well, I didn't spend as much! I am thinking about just paying to have my Dell fixed (well, after I try reformatting it on my own) and picking up the Asus. It's not like Team TnA is lacking in computers. I have a desktop in my office, and Tom has one (a nice big one) in his. What on earth do I need a full blown, feature packed laptop for? Right??

What a weekend it was! Friday, our McNair research class started. It's from 9-noon every Friday this summer, and luckily, it counts toward our 40 hour/week research requirement. I enjoyed it. It's all McNair scholars and also NSF (National Science Foundation) people who are visiting UNT for the summer to do research. It was nice to meet some new people. The class itself was nice too. We will have a different guest every week to talk about some aspect of the research process. This week, our guest talked about formulating proposals and gave us some handouts that I thought were really helpful.

Friday night, Tom and I went to dinner at Texas Land & Cattle. Still wasn't super impressed. The first time we went, my food was so bad that I complained and our whole ticket was comped. I have NEVER complained at a restaurant, and having to bothered me so much that it ruined my night! Still, we tried again. It was good, just not special. Now I know!

Later that night, my mom called, and a family friend, my old pastor's son, my sister's ex-boyfriend, etc etc, was in the hospital and not expected to live through the night. He had a terrible infection after colon surgery. He is awake and talking now, two days later, but expected to recover. Thank goodness! I was so upset about it...people, especially 30-year-olds, just shouldn't be dealing with that stuff.

Tom went to Barnwell Mountain Saturday with his buddies to go offroading. I guess I don't get it, but apparently, it was fun. I get muddin', but looking at the pictures, it just looked like a bunch of guys getting their trucks into tight spots, stopping to take pictures of it and say "Whooooaaaa!", then carrying on. LOL Here is the most compromising situation the truck was in.

I had an equally thrilling day (not!) going to the library. It was nice though, because I got a lot done. Sometimes you just need real live books, you know? No matter how good your library's electronic journal database is. I forgot to mention how frustrated I am with my advisor because I sent her an email about this presentation with a couple easy questions (like, telling her what I'm doing and "am I on the right track?") and she responded to my email without addressing my questions. This is just another in a series of shenanigans...it's fine, it's just that I'm going to talk to a bunch of people for 45 minutes about our half baked research study that we aren't finishing til fall, and I'd like a little guidance. I am not the expert here! She is in Ecuador until the night before our presentation.

But I'm serious when I say it's fine. Saturday was bad, but I got in the zone today and made progress that I feel good about. I'll just be glad when this particular presentation is over and my project can go back to being enjoyable.

We also went to Frys today. Get this, I'm in the market for a new laptop, and I'm seriously considering a MacBook. I just want something that will last... My poor Dell is on the fritz, and I need something before fall because I can't go back to taking notes by hand.

The week ahead promises more work, more research, and a new volunteer position with Upward Bound Math & Science. We're also going to visit my dad to do some fishing this weekend. Don't forget it's father's day Sunday!

And finally, we need to mow. Sorry kitties, you'll have to find another hiding place. Have a great week!!

They finally put up the schedule for the conference I'm presenting at, my first one. Friday, June 20 at 10:15
http://www.tcecweb.org/pdf/sched_08.pdf
I'll go throw up now.

Dinner was just a little too fun tonight. LOL

I was gonna make taco salad and just put tortilla chips in it. Tom said something about tortilla bowls, and I thought, hmmmmm, I have a recipe clipping somewhere for that.

And I found it (cause I rip out all the recipes from magazines that I think I may actually make someday and throw em in a binder). You make foil balls about 4" or 5" around (I used big tortillas), put the foil balls on a baking sheet, lay the flour tortillas on top of the balls and spray them with cooking spray. Bake them at 425 for 6-8 minutes, but mine took a bit longer. Just till they're browned and crispy.

Anyway, as I was saying, we had a little too much fun with our chicken fajita salads.

Thank goodness I had those thanksgiving, er...Mexican style dish towels laying around from Heather's baby shower!